Chapter 4

Finding my way home was easy, I had lived there for fifty years after all. But I had a shock when I got there.

I guess I must have been looking at the house with younger eyes somehow. God I had no taste, and boy did it need decorating.

The rest of that day was spent busily sorting my finances and dumping all of my old clothes into a pile for giving to a charity shop, I wasn’t worried which one as long as someone would come and collect it. By early evening I was beginning to feel peckish and as there was no food in the house I decided I would go into town to eat.

I caught a bus into the town centre. The bus was jammed full, standing room only. Some guy, well I think it was a guy, touched my rear and for a moment the hand tried to slip between my legs. My skin crawled at the thought of being groped by some faceless man and I tried to move through the crowded bus away from the questing hand but in such a confined space I had nowhere to go. Eventually the bus arrived at the centre of town and I got off with relief. Tomorrow I would have to look into getting a car.

I had been told by my doctor to keep off fried foods for some years, but now I had this lovely healthy body and I wanted to sit down to a decent plate of fish and chips. I knew that if I wanted to keep this body looking as fit and healthy as it did now I would have to be careful what I ate, but just now I wanted to indulge myself. There used to be a lovely fish and chip shop in the town that Maddie and I used to visit occasionally, that was where I was headed. When I got near my heart dropped, my fish and chip shop had been replaced by an estate agents. The only other place I had seen that was open was a McDonalds or one of the pubs.

I have never been into one of these McDonalds places so I decided to give it a try. The brightly lit interior was plastered in posters for different burgers it was all quite confusing.

I looked at all the pictures and decided to have a Big Mac whatever that was. Eventually I got to the front of the queue and was served. Asking for a Big Mac the girl confused me further by asking if I wanted it as a meal.

Stupid question, I didn’t want to wear it as a hat did I? I must have looked confused and the girl tried to explain the way the food was priced. I was trying to understand what she was telling me when I heard whispered in my ear.

“Did you want potato fries and a fizzy drink with your burger?”

I turned to see my copper haired beauty standing at my shoulder.

“Uh, no I just wanted one of those Big Mac things.”

“Just a burger please not a meal.” she told the girl.

I paid for my food and waited for her to put it on a tray, why I needed a tray for just the little box she gave me I don’t know.

“Do you want to join us?” she asked me and pointed to a table where another girl was sitting beside of a guy.

I was thrilled at the prospect of spending some time with this beautiful person, but what would I say, what would her friends think. I got into such a panic about being confronted with several young people, I didn’t know what young people liked, didn’t know what they talked about. I couldn’t see them enjoying me talking about exchange rates and interest rates and even that information would be out of date.

“Um, no, I wouldn’t want to intrude into your...” I gasped.

“Don’t be silly,” she said flashing me that incredible smile. “we were only killing time before going to the Movieshack.”

“Movieshack?” I must have looked like an idiot, it had been so long since I had been to the picture house with Maddie that they must have changed their name, it had been “The Capitol” in my day.

“You must be new around here if you don’t know the Movieshack.” This vision said to me as she steered me over to her friends.

“Um, yes, sort of, my uncle died last year and I got a letter telling me I had to come up here to sort some stuff out.” I answered blushing as I sat down.

The other people had been appraising me as I was steered to the table. I was shaking with nerves, so close to the object of my desire, unable to even think of what I would say to her.

“Well let me introduce you, this is my friend Carrie, this is my guy Mark and I’m afraid my name is Wishes.” Her beautiful pale face flushed as she said the last name.